Image source: Forbes
Warning: the following article contains sensitive content that readers may find disturbing
Robert Sylvester Kelly, better known as R. Kelly, was found guilty of child sexual abuse after a four-week trial.
The disgraced artist was convicted on six of 13 counts in his hometown of Chicago.
The news
In 2021, R. Kelly was convicted of sex trafficking and racketeering in New York, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The latest verdict will add years to his sentence.
The verdict fell on Wednesday and found him guilty of three counts of sexual seduction of minors and three counts of producing sexual images of children.
However, the jury found him not guilty of obstruction of justice at his trial in 2008—a case that ended in an acquittal.
Meanwhile, two of his former associates, both accused of tampering with the 2008 lawsuit, have been cleared of all charges.
Read also: Fetty Wap pleads guilty to drug charge
Jane
In 2008, the trial revolved around a 30-minute video showing the pedophile assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
The victim took the pseudonym Jane and refused to testify in court at the time, leading the jury to acquit Kelly of all charges.
However, earlier this year, Jane testified that she was the victim seen in the footage.
Now 37, she has revealed Kelly sexually assaulted her hundreds of times before she turned 18.
The tape and two others were shown to the jury during the trial, and four other women accused Kelly of sexually molesting them as children.
More than 30 witnesses testified.
The video
In the closing discussion on Monday, a juror had a panic attack while presenting graphic descriptions of child abuse.
The juror was fired and replaced by an alternate juror.
US assistant prosecutor Elizabeth Pozolo talked about the video of the pedophile urinating on the girl.
“That degrading act is forever captured on that video. That abuse is forever memorialized.”
“Who does that?” Pozolo continued.
“Who uses a 14-year-old child to film a video like this? This man. Robert Kelly.”
Jennifer Bonjean, the artist’s disgraced lawyer, criticized prosecutors after reading the verdict.
She accused them of “charged counts that they couldn’t win.”
Bonjean also claimed that the jurors were doing their job by acquitting the pedophile of half the charges.
“Obviously we are not celebrating a win, but are happy the jury looked at each count.”
Read also: Hustlers University, Andrew Tate’s program, shuts down after his social media ban
September 2021 trial
During the September 2021 trial in New York, jurors heard about Kelly smuggling women for sexual abuse between different states in the United States.
The actions are said to have been carried out with the help of executives, guards, and other members of his entourage.
The media highlighted that the 2021 conviction was the first of the #MeToo movement that put black prosecutors at the center of a major sexual abuse trial.
In 2021, the court also learned of how the pedophile artist obtained documents to marry 15-year-old singer Aaliyah in 1994, seven years before her untimely death.
The marriage certificate was leaked at the time and indicated Aaliyah’s age as 18.
However, the marriage was dissolved months later.
Reference:
